Dispensationalism, Justice, and Grace

While I am still preparing for my book review, I want to spend a bit of time on another subject that was clarified to me after reading one of the book’s essays.  Since the subject mentioned does not deal specifically with war itself, I thought it proper to exclude it from the upcoming post and have it as a sort of precursor to the review.

I’ll state the obvious first: “Dispensationalism” is a big term.  For the common person, it’s almost like a doctor speaking to you in strict medical terminology.  There is a purpose to the word, but assuredly many do not know where it came from or what it means without some explanation.  Most highly educated individuals in seminaries across the globe are undoubtedly familiar with the word “dispensation” and what it means when applied to scripture, but the fact is that there are many people who have either never heard of it, or if they have, they are not clear about exactly what it means and why they should care.  Hopefully this blog will help to inform, or perhaps I will be better informed on the issue by others after sharing my understanding of it.

Here’s a litote for you: Jesus Christ radically changed the world.  Perhaps one of the key debates of dispensationalism is just how much changed when Christ came into the world and fulfulled the Messianic role.  How did salvation change?  How are we to view our relationship to God and to others now that Christ has come and offered the perfect sacrifice?  And perhaps the biggest question that dispensationalists deal with (or at least the one dealt with in this book):  How did Christ’s message of love affect our understanding of the Old Testament law?

According to the all-knowing, all-possibly-wrong Wikipedia, dispensationalism is “the divine distributing, dispensing or arranging of time and human events; depending on how the word is used, it can also refer to the excluding of rights and laws. Theological Dispensation is one of but several descriptions, each of which are simply attempts to understand events. Yet, whole denominations, and even religious structures have risen towards and against these various beliefs.”  Thus, the dispensationalist sees key periods of time as being quite different. 

To the dispensationalist, the Old Testament and the period of law has been completed, and it has been replaced by a period of grace through Christ and the New Testament.  The implications of this are many, especially when it comes to a Christian understanding of justice.  The determining of just how dangerous this point is depends on the dispensationalist’s view of the dispensations he has.  If a dispensationalist believes that the period of grace supercedes the period of law, it implies that Christians should only act out of love, never out of defense, leaving justice to government alone.  There is also the option that a dispensationalist can have a much more liberal view of his dispensations, delegating them to epochs rather than theological constructs.  This is much less dangerous, yet is still susceptible to a weaker interpretation of scripture.  This point is also, of course, my opinion.

Ok, time for a reset in case I lost someone along the way:  Dispensationalism is a way of looking at the Bible in such a way that it views different parts of the Bible as “dispensations” or periods of time.  The most dangerous form of dispensationalism is the sort that states that Christ’s message of love supercedes the Old Testament’s formality and law.

I have to agree that many of the Old Testament laws are no longer restraining.  We are no longer under the Jewish law.  Through Christ, and through grace, we have been set free from the burden of it.  The fact is, though, the law remains there to remind us of our shortcomings.  It has not magically disappeared, nor will it ever.  Here’s another good point to ponder:  Whereas some believe that Christ supercedes the law, others believe that Christ fulfilled the law.  Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.  God gave us the law out of love and justice, and He sent His son out of love to fulfill it.  There are no dispensations, only the natural progression of events, a fulfillment of prophecy and a universal way for salvation.

When some advocate for the Christian to refrain from all acts and forms of justice, limiting their idea of Christianity to peaceful nonresistence, they are ignoring the law of God and the system of government that He allows.  God supplied grace for all men, yet there has to be a system of justice in place to punish those who do wrong.

More will follow on this subject later.

Scientific Absolutes vs. Religious Absolutes

Looking back at one of my earlier posts, I noticed a flaw in the logic of one of my comments.  It should be pointed out and examined.  (See my last comment at the bottom of the page)

There is most definitely a difference between a scientific absolute and a religious absolute.  The difference between the two is that science is of man, whereas religion is of God.  God in his omniciense can speak of absolutes.  Our absolutes through religion are known by studying God’s Word, the Bible, His revelation to mankind.  I almost tend to agree with scientists when they would rather use the term “theory” as opposed to “law”.  Since science is based upon the finite knowledge of man, it has much more potential to be flawed and even minutely inaccurate.

Upcoming Posts

I have all but finished reading a book on war, specifically four possible ways that Christians can view war.  I want to take my time with the post, however, because I want to get it right the first time without error.  The book was written in the 80’s, yet it still remains relevant.

In the meantime, Katie and I are quite busy trying to get settled in to out new apartment.  We have no internet there at the moment either, so updates will appear infrequently.  Be sure to check back in a few days, as I hope to have the next blog up soon.

Situational Prudence?

In an article a few days ago, I discussed moral prudence and the need to carefully choose that which you let into your life.  A question that I have for discussion is this:  In your opinion, is it Biblically acceptable to watch or to listen to immoral things outside of the company of others who are more sensitive to “adult issues”?  (Example: Not wanting to watch a PG-13 or R rated movie in front of young children, but watching it later in the company of adults or alone)

My opinion thus far is that the issue can be decided based upon what the intent of the production is.  Is the message of the production a good thing to meditate upon (that will stir us to good action and Godly lifestyle), or is the intent of the production to exploit, destroy morality and goodness, or corrupt?  Also, I do not think that moral compromises can be made with trivial things.  If there is no purpose other than to entertain, entertainment alone does not justify immoral content.  Certainly our primary source of meditation should be God’s word.  We should be filling ourselves primarily with Godly things, and we should let everything else be secondary, utilizing prudence to determine what is acceptable for Christians to partake of.  If we are cultivating a true relationship with God, His Spirit within us will chastise when we stray from the sanctified life that He is working to produce in us.

Another Article on Neomodernism

Here is an interesting blog article, apparently written in 1998 (and not sourced, unless it was the actual author), which deals with the need for new modern principles in the realm of art.

http://guydenning.blogspot.com/2006/01/neo-modern.html

It’s kind of a dry read, but it reamains at least somewhat thought provoking nonetheless.  You will notice that this author prefers not to use the term “postmodern” but rather sees the postmodern movement as an extension of modernism, as many do.

Don’t expect me to update much over the next few weeks, things are about to get chaotic in my life.  I will probably recover in about a month.  (I’m getting married!!!!! )

Oh, and the #1 page on google search for “neomodernity” is ME!  I still don’t claim “neomodernism” and “neomodern” however.  It’s a word that has been thrown around quite a bit more than I originally thought.

*update* – Turns out that it is an actual article by Guy Denning, who is a major proponent of neomodernism.  Wikipedia has a bit of information on him:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Denning  It’d be kind of neat to try and get an interview with him.